Bonnie Twyford, who was first appointed to the MHA’s board of directors in 2013, took over as board chair for a two-year term, after winning an election that took place during the MHA’s annual general meeting on July 24.

She replaces Neil MacLean as board chair, who completed his two-year term this summer.

MacLean will continue to sit on MHA’s board of directors as past chair.

Twyford, a long-time human resources generalist who has a wide range of board and committee experience at organizations including the Middlesex County Board of Education, the Limberlost Chaplaincy and London Goodwill Industries, said she was honoured to be elected to the position of board chair and believes her past experience will guide her going forward.

“I think my experiences in human resources will play a big role along with my leadership skills, because I was in a leadership role for years,” she said.

Twyford said her first priority would be to support the management of the Middlesex Health Alliance in achieving their goals, which includes becoming part of a new governance team in partnership with the London Health Science Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care London.

“That’s the big thing,” she said. “There’s a lot going on now with the Ontario Health Teams – we’ve gone in with LHSC and St. Joe’s in London as part of the Western Ontario Health Team, so we’re working on that with them – and so we’d like to support management and help them get where they need to be.

“Todd Stepanuik, the CEO of MHA, has always developed great relationships with a lot of different partners. So it’s all about working together with the infrastructure we have to provide the best patient services we can,” Twyford continued. “We have a strategic plan that we’re working on and there are many goals that we’ll (identify) there as well.”

Pretty much the only constant in the world of contemporary healthcare is change, Twyford said.

“There are a lot of changes going on right now and nobody is really certain what direction it’s all going to end up in, but I think the overriding goal for everybody is to provide better access to health services for our patients,” she said. “We want to make patients’ experiences smoother, we want them to transition to long-term care or to get other services as smoothly as possible.”

Funding is also an ever-present issue that Twyford will try to address during her two-year term, she said.

“There’s always the situation of funding,” she said. “We’re very, very fortunate that our community has been very supportive of the Middlesex Health Alliance and for that we’re extremely grateful. But of course there’s only a finite amount of money and while we’ll try to get more funding and raise more money though our foundation…we also hope to get some formulas changed with the Ministry of Health with regards to middle-sized hospitals.” The next two years will be hectic, Twyford said, but she takes some solace that the team around her is professional and hard-working.

“It’s an honour to be elected into this position and it’s going to be busy,” she said. “But I’m working with a very professional board, a very respectful board so that’s certainly going to make my life easier.”